By default FBX will consider 1 centimeter in Max = 1 SI unit. If you want something different then that you can, under options, set the scaling to manual and have that changed to 1=10 or 1=0,1 or whatever suites you best.

Ok... can we move on?
Sorry for beign a dick but...

I dont know about that... but keeping it short (90min) is very good, IMHO, as it is not THAT time consuming... so it may appeal to a broader audience

When you say mentalcore do you mean the maya plugin? Is nVidia distributing those shaders for free now ?

Not render but faster previewing. HQV is shading per pixel, not per vertex, it also render procedural textures and shadows, plus it is hdr and respects linear workflow... so while it is not final output in can help you in those matters.

Wouldnt hurt if post-sim would support modeling changes... who cares if Point IDs change that late in the process?
Good for thikening cloth sims

HQV is an OpenGL type renderer, while progressive rendering is a raytracing thing. HQV cant shoot rays, calulate reflections from objects and that type stuff...

If you want progressive rendering get Rray's MR string options and set "progressive" attribute to the value ON

I also resort to this workaround you described. Have filed this animated collision bug before, and encourage others to bump this with support guys. Just to clarify it does not matter if you use the substeps in lagoa sim node or the pointcloud propertie, collision will only be calculated using passiv...

There is no get data at frame node, sadly. So you could do this two ways, if you can/want to use simulation you can store data from each frame as a separate entry in an array, if you can't or dot want to use simulation there is a get data from clip... but you would obviously store your animation as ...

Well, sort of:
http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/sho ... ble-(beta)

must use image lookup node for custom projections. regular image node has its projection lookup built in.

Wouldn't that override the entire surface of all the objects? No, you can override any specific port or shader property... very useful. Though of course it is simpler to set transparency in AE, since it is a compositing package not a 3d app :p One thing I like in Eyeon Fusion's spline editor / dope...

so who is keeping people from creating motion graphics in ice?
this seems much more a byproduct of Houdinis procedural nature, then development/marketing strategie... and I also bet it is a lot more complicated then c4d for the avarage joe

what about the middle unwelded section... I really dont mind, but I know a bunch of picky modelers who do

yeah, sounds like pinning would do it... and people have been missing it for years! (or is it just me?)